My dad asking if I was happy. Me saying yes. Cade’s name across my chest. The arena doors opening any second so he could walk out with damp hair and tired eyes and that stupid controlled face he wore when he was pretending he hadn’t just played like a feral god in front of an entire campus.
Instead, Knox’s phone rang.
I wouldn’t have noticed it if his face hadn’t changed before he even answered.
One second, he was Knox. My brother. Annoying, overprotective, trying to pretend he hadn’t softened at the glass kiss like the rest of them.
The next, he was gone.
His body went still in that terrifying way cops went still when the world handed them something ugly. Not calm. Not blank. Worse. He became quiet around the edges, like every human part of him had stepped back to make room for whatever came next.
Every Bennett within ten feet stopped moving.
Knox looked at the screen. “It’s Ryan.”
Relief and confusion tangled together in my chest because Ryan calling Knox should not have meant anything terrible. Ryan was Cade’s friend. Ryan was steady. Ryan was the one who watched rooms and noticed things and somehow made silence feel useful instead of awkward.
Why would Ryan call Knox?
Knox answered, already stepping half away from us. “Decker?”
Whatever Ryan said took every bit of color out of my brother’s face.
I saw it happen.
Saw his jaw go slack for half a second before it locked so hard the muscle near his temple jumped. Saw his eyes cut toward the arena doors. Saw his hand lift slightly, palm out, like he was already trying to hold me back from something I didn’t even know existed yet.
The cold went through me differently then. Not the October cold. Something internal with teeth.
“What?” Ryker asked.
Knox didn’t answer him. He pressed the phone harder to his ear. “Slow down.”
My heart started pounding so hard it hurt. Dad’s arm loosened from my shoulders, but his hand stayed on me, heavy and warm and suddenly not enough.
“Knox,” Dad said.
Knox’s eyes flicked to me. That was when I knew. Not what. Not how bad. Not the shape of the thing. But I knew something had happened, something bad enough that my brother looked at me like he was already trying to figure out how to break my life in half without killing me.
“No,” I whispered.
Aura’s hand found mine. Charm caught my other wrist.
Knox turned slightly away, but terror sharpened every sound until the whole parking lot seemed to narrow around his voice.
“Where?” A pause. “Is he breathing?”
The world stopped.
Not slowed.
Stopped.
No.
No.
No, no, no.
